iPad Shockwave: Domestic electronic publishing industry chain melee

Under the organization of iPad, the electronic publishing industry chain has been initially established in the United States, but at home, it is still in a "mixed war".

Yuan Rongzhen has been very busy recently. On the one hand, he wants to participate in organizing the exhibition of the 20th Boao Fair held in Chengdu recently. On the other hand, he has to prepare for the high-level seminar on strategic development of the company. As the Capital Operation Director of Sichuan Xinhua Wenxuan (00811.HK), he shouldered the task of formulating the company's future development strategy.

“We have a strong sense of crisis and urgency, which stems from the significant changes in market demand and market structure brought about by digital technology and will change the conditions for the survival and development of the traditional publishing industry.” Yuan Rongzhen told the reporter of the “First Financial Daily” .

In fact, over the years, with the popularity of the Internet, the "digital crisis" has caused the traditional news publishing industry to have industry-wide anxiety.

On April 3rd, Apple iPad’s tablet iPad was released for sale. People suddenly realized that digital publishing is no longer a theoretical model, but has literally taken the lives of hundreds of thousands of iPad users. The U.S. journalism and publishing industry seized the opportunity provided by the iPad and began a new revolution. Times, The New York Times, and several book publishers have tailored the iPad to the electronic version.

However, at home, this change is only a trend and there is no mature business model.

Liu Dingguo, director of the strategic development department of Xinhua Wenxuan, said: “There is no one form of coping mode. The industry is not the same with regard to the development of digital publishing in the future. Everyone is trying, and the business model is different. Now everyone is Melee."

Combat electronic commerce

At the opening ceremony of the Expo on the 24th, the "digital publishing, animation and new media industry product exhibition area" has become the highlight and highlight of the exhibition. The entire exhibition area is based on a 11,000-square-meter spatial plan for a complete pavilion, which mainly includes emerging technology categories such as electronic publishing, online publishing, mobile phone 3G, animation and new media.

“The biggest impact of digitalization is on traditional publishing channels. The future of digital terminal products, such as Amazon’s Kindle and Apple’s iPad, these emerging terminal reading products will have a great impact on popular reading habits. If readers come online in the future, Or can the e-books be read on the terminal readers and not into the bookstores? How will the traditional bookstores exist?” said Liu Dingguo.

Xinhua Wenxuan is the first batch of pilot units for reform of the cultural system in China. It has taken the lead in integrating and reorganizing the independent independent cities and counties of Xinhua Bookstore in China, and has successfully listed in Hong Kong. Its main business is book sales.

In response to the impact, Xinhua Wenxuan created the e-commerce website Wenxuan.com.

In the "Platform Explaining Session" of Wenxuan.com, Dai Chuanping, President of Sichuan Xinhua Distribution Group, told the media that Wenxuan.net sold 2 million yuan in 2008 and sold 20 million yuan in 2009. It is expected to reach 50 million yuan this year. Strong momentum. On the 23rd, Xinhua Wenxuan introduced this platform to major publishers across the country.

However, in the strategic transformation of this company, this is only the first step.

Yuan Rongzhen said: “According to our current resource conditions, I personally believe that we should begin with traditionally published e-commerce and then use it as a platform to integrate digital publishing and sales of digital products. The third step, I think, should be multi-format media. The fusion."

Industrial chain revolution

In fact, Xinhua Wenxuan's approach represents the transformation of many traditional book distributors. In the Xinhua Bookstore system, e-commerce websites such as One City and Boko Book City emerged.

But with the advent of reading terminals such as the iPad and the Kindle, Dangdang and Amazon’s leading audio-visual book e-commerce website itself is also facing transformation issues.

"Dangdang is only an online sales channel for traditional publications. In the future, there will be fewer traditional publications. They are also targets of being eliminated," said one person in the industry.

In the iPad business model, Apple worked directly with content providers and bypassed middlemen.

On April 2, the "New York Times" officially released its application on the iPad. Readers can download newspaper content directly from the iPad. The New York Times is one of dozens of newspapers that use the iPad to provide content for readers around the world.

“We have plans to develop fully-paid iPad apps in the future,” Stacy Green, public relations manager for The New York Times, told this reporter. “But there is no specific time.”

However, advertisers have already announced their participation in the "New York Times" iPad application. Toyota, chemical bank and a real estate company are eager to try.

The advent of the iPad broke the dominance of Amazon’s e-reader Kindle, which has excited the publishing community. At present, five of the top six publishers in the United States have signed cooperation agreements with Apple. Hachette Collins, Harper Collins, Macmillan, Penguin, and Simon Schuster will all provide e-books on the iPad.

For each e-book sale, Apple charges 30%, and publishers reserve 70%.

According to Bai Sanwang’s CEO Cheng Sanguo, in the traditional industrial chain, printers, wholesalers, and retailers are divided into 10%, 10%, and 40% respectively, and publishers only get 40%. The profits from the sale of e-books are of great appeal to publishers.

Traditional publishing still has business opportunities

Digitalization not only has an impact on publishing and distribution channels, but also has a major impact on publishers. Liu Dingguo believes that digital technology will change the operating mode of traditional content production, and the original publishing company’s business process for finding authors’ drafts and editing and processing will also be overturned.

At present, there are already such original literary websites as the Chinese website of the starting point and the banyan tree.

However, Liu Dingguo said that although everyone can see a lot of works on the Internet, the mainstream in the market is still works created by professional writers and edited by professional editors.

Xinhua Wenxuan actually has the ambition to build a content production platform, but it has two difficulties. First of all, how to gather better writers? Second, how to create a huge audience and interact with it to produce benefits? Starting point Chinese network, under the banyan tree has taken a step.

However, Yuan Rongji predicts that in the next 5 to 10 years, revolutionary changes will occur in reading methods and purchase methods. Therefore, he believes that Xinhua Wenxuan will continue to maintain strong growth in the traditional industry and maintain a certain market share.

Even if the way of reading changes, according to Liu Dingguo's judgment, the final result may be that the traditional business and the emerging business will be evenly divided. "Or 4-6 open, or 37 open, complete replacement is impossible."

Therefore, for a channel provider such as Xinhua Wenxuan, how to compete for the market share of physical books with emerging e-commerce sites like Dangdang and Amazon Excellence is the most urgent task.

Posted on